


Ends and Means

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Comics), Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel 616, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Action/Adventure, Anal Sex, Dark Peter, Drugs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, Hero Worship, Long-Distance Relationship, Long-Term Relationship(s), Love Triangles, M/M, Physical Abuse, Pining, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rimming, Unrequited Love, and sex, dark shit, plenty of sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:24:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6568063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life's hard when you love a guy who bounces around the timestream. At least Wade's found a new friend in that cute little spiderkid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **In case you didn't read the tags - this story will soon become explicit. It will also contain rape/noncon (none yet). Be warned!**

Nathan started it. Inadvertently, perhaps, but he started it nevertheless. Intention counted for little when you’d enabled something of this magnitude. Had every Nazi _intended_ the holocaust? Had Infectia _intended_ to release the Legacy virus, in its third and most harmful iteration?

…Well, considering the part his clone played in that fiasco, it was best not to think about that.

Nathan supposed some things were beyond blame, no matter how far back you traced an action’s lineage. One fact was certain though. In this case, here and now, no vindication could be found. Someone needed to pay. Standing over Wade’s mutilated body, unable even to hold his hand to provide comfort lest he disturb the raw patterns of skin growth that dappled his skin like leopard print, Nathan forced himself to revisit that day and ascertain once and for all, whether he was at fault.

***

It started in a flash of light. Time-travelly things usually did – or at least in Wade Wilson’s experience. So it wasn’t a surprise when a familiar figure coalesced from the timestream in a mess of glitching pixels, and punched him in the face.

“Priscilla!” he squeaked. Or more like, “Drissiba.” Semantics. “Dyou came bdackd!”

“You mustn’t kill that man, Wade,” says Nathan, fending off Wade’s attempts to incapacitate him-slash-hug his legs.

“Aw. Spoilsport!”

“What do you mean, _kill…?_ ” What had up until this moment been a dull if disturbing patrol was swiftly descending into ‘potential boss battle’ territory. Peter, who’d jumped two meters vertically at Cable’s unannounced appearance, span around and stared. “He wasn’t going to – whatever you think, you're wrong! Don’t hurt him!”

Cable towered over him, blocking the light. “Yes he was,” he said.

“Yes, I was.” Wade, chirpy echo met with dual-glares, put up his hands. Mashed fragments of nasal cartilage aligned themselves without assistance, accompanied by several wet pops. “What? Sheesh. So touchy.”

Peter massaged the bridge of his nose. The space rapidly became crowded with eyebrow and bunched mask as his frown intensified. “Wade.”

“Yes?” Sitting on his heels, eyeholes perfect circles, Wade made a disturbingly childish picture. He looked from Peter to Nathan and back again. Then, before Peter could complete his speech – the usual guff: why killing was bad, why when they patrolled they represented the entire population of costumed heroes, and why America had this nifty thing called a _justice system_ – he snapped his fingers. “Of course! Introductions. Nate, meet Spidey. Spidey, meet Nathan, aka Cable, aka saviour of the world many times over –“

“I’ve done that too,” Peter protested. His voice went unheard.

“- Aka son-of-Scott Summers (I don’t know who I feel more sorry for), aka ‘how many middle names can we fit on a birth certificate’, aka ‘the most powerful old man outside of a kung fu movie’, aka Cable. Now shake hands and make nice.”

“He just punched you in the face,” Peter reminded him. But Wade was too busy bounding to his feet, taking the hand Nathan proffered as an afterthought rather than a crutch.

He held it too long. Peter decided not to comment.

“Yep. Lil’ love tap, that’s all. I heal.” Wade affixed his eyes to Cable’s. The mask disguised the movement of his pupils, but Peter could tell. It was obvious. His energy fizzed effervescent, a bubble of elated glee and _violence_ that always gushed from Wade mid-battle. Peter suspected it was the most potent expression of love a man like Wade Wilson could feel. He’d never seen it directed at someone though. At least, not someone who didn’t swiftly acquire a new sword-shaped appendage.

He caught himself hoping, and brushed that idea away with the haste of a gardener cleaning their fly-tape bare handed - he didn't want to consider himself capable of such a thought. Just because his gut-reaction to Nate was one of intense dislike, that didn't mean he wanted the man dead.

But Wade didn’t attack. He sighed, starry and soft, and murmured in a voice reserved for Bea Arthur: “You still punch like that first time. Remember Tolliver? And the boxes? Oh man, I miss those days.”

 _I miss you._ It didn’t need to be said.

Nathan’s lip twitched, the only tell on a serene face. The attention Wade gave him was reciprocal: if Wade simmered with unfulfilled motion, Nathan was the epitome of stillness. His focus, his entire being, had honed on Wade – much like Wade’s on his.

Who knew? If Peter hadn’t been present, Nate might have cracked an all-out smile.

Peter and the man they’d been interrogating, that was.

Peter had known it wouldn’t end well the moment the thug, lashed to a wall with webbing, coughed out his confession. They’d caught him sneaking up a fire escape overlooking a dilapidated apartment block in Queens’s dingiest neighborhood, questioned him for suspicious behavior, and chased when he fled. He’d thought he could flee over the roofs. Stupid, stupid man. But stupid Peter as well, for forcing the admission from him there rather than leaving him to the tender custody of the NYPD.

Peter had prepared to hold Wade back to stop him turning the guy to mincemeat. But a part of him had hoped ( _believed_ , even) that Wade cared enough about his approval that he wouldn’t out-and-out murder someone in front of him. Even someone who’d disclosed through busted, gappy teeth that he’d meant to steal a child from an open window, one who wouldn’t be missed.

Showed how much he knew Wade.

He’d knocked out the thug as soon as the words left him, spider-sense aflame with the barrage of hate and danger emanating from the man behind him. Of course, he’d been between them, but Wade was a trained mercenary assassin – best in the business, if his somewhat exorbitant claims were to be believed. He could’ve made that shot. So if Nathan hadn’t arrived… If Wade had had the chance to steady his gun…

Peter swallowed. The bloody rosette blossoming on the thug’s chin would’ve grown a helluva lot larger.

Wade was still watching Nathan.

“Can I hug you?” he whispered.

He never asked Peter that. He just _did it_ , with the expectation that Peter would shove him away when he wasn’t in the mood. In fact, Wade so rarely asked anyone for anything when he could just _take it_ and see how they reacted, that it took a moment to register his request as having been made outside of Peter’s fantasies.

Peter rose from the defensive crouch he’d fallen into at Cable’s first arrival, feeling lost and uncertain as to why. _Don’t be a child_ , he scolded himself as Cable acquiesced with a warm rumble, folding Wade in flesh and metal arms. _It’s good he has other friends. His obsession with you isn’t healthy. You should be encouraging this._

Yet a small part of him – the truthful part, which he hated to listen to but his duty as a hero demanded he never ignore – insisted that while Wade’s crush wasn’t strictly _wholesome_ for either of them, Peter enjoyed the mercenary's neediness, and that was far, far worse.

Unease brewed in his gut. It compounded into irritation, as Wade grabbed cheeky handfuls of ass and gave them a thorough squeezing.

Nathan let him. Peter wanted to scream.

_D_ _on’t encourage him, you’ll only make it worse. Then you’ll never get rid of him. You don’t want that, do you?_

Nathan extracted Wade only when those wandering hands became too distracting to ignore – Wade relocated them to his chest, obedient as a trained dog, and Peter had to quell the fluttering white-hot fury as he rested his head there to listen to Cable’s heart.

“You’re going again, aren’t you,” he mumbled. Cable cupped the back of his skull, gloved thumbs tracing whorled scars through the double-layer of lycra between them. He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

“It’s okay,” Wade continued, although he appeared to be attempting self-asphyxiation in the groove between Cable’s pectorals. And – alright, so maybe Wade’s evident affection for him wasn’t the only reason Peter was miffed.

Stupid muscular cyborg. How did a… _mature_ guy maintain that physique, anyway? Peter wouldn’t put on that much muscle if he did nothing but eat raw chicken and lift weights for a decade.

“It’s okay, I understand. You got future things to do, right? Like with Jimmy Saville-wannabe here.” Wade's eye-holes narrowed; his muscles wound tight as industrial springs. “Why can’t I shoot him, again?”

Cable worked his thumbs in soothing circles. The suit highlighted every detail as Wade relaxed. It was vacuum-packed to the toned wedge of his back, and the streetlamps glossed him and Cable into a single, seamless being, alight with a dull orange gleam.

“His daughter will create a cure for a disease which will one day ravage mutantkind. I’ve ensured that she is taken from his custody as soon as possible.”

“And he gets his comeuppance, right?” Wade glared at the thug, although Cable anticipated him and sidestepped to block his sight. His scowl lasted an instant, but Peter flinched nevertheless, adrenaline inundating his system at the sight of Wade’s undiluted rage.

He wouldn’t have been able to stop him. He knew that now.

Forget Wade’s crush, forget his lame hero-worship; all that mattered was that Wade had been about to murder a criminal in cold blood, and Cable had gotten between them. Really, Peter thought, he should be grateful. He did a poor job of convincing anyone – least of all himself.

Wade’s fury wasn’t mitigated by Cable’s response: “I’ll see to it personally.”  But it did lessen, just a little. 

“Tell him ‘from Deadpool with love’.”

“Will do.” Petting the body nuzzled limpet-tight to his front, Cable squinted to one side.

“How long?” he asked. Peter blinked, as the woman painted on his titanium bicep slithered up the metal like a salmon across a weir and whispered something only Cable could hear. “Five minutes. Wade…”

“Right.” Wade cleared his throat.

Peter expected him to say his goodbyes there and then. He was impatient for it, in fact, tapping his foot and wondering if it’d be rude to roll up one sleeve and check his watch. That was the downside to costumed vigilantism – phones ruined the lines of your suit. But instead, Wade turned to him and shuffled his boots one over the other until Nathan grounded him with the weight of one massive hand.

“Uh, sorry Spidey,” he said. “This is all a bit PDA, huh? And as much as I’m a fan on spying on folks, with binoculars and a sniper scope if necessary, m’guessing you don’t want to see someone with my face suck on anyone else's." He smiled, small and rueful – Peter could see it through the mask – and continued before Peter could correct him. “Nah, you zoom on off, webhead. Get going on the rest of the patrol. Save me some muggers. I’ll catch up.”

And he turned to Nathan, careful to show Peter only his back, and reeled up the bottom half of his mask.

Peter understood why Wade got touchy about his face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Sure, his bone structure was nice, in a conventional sort of way, but the skin on top of it bunched and stretched like a half-solidified lava flow filmed in fast-forwards. It sagged about the eyes and pinched tight to his skull, always looking a hot day away from rotting. Granulation glistened in the cracks, which formed and merged and scabbed over in such rapid succession that the previous scar scarcely had time to heal before a new one took its place. Watching their blistering passage made Peter’s pores pucker in sympathy.

He looked away before Wade caught him staring. Nathan had noticed though. He smiled at Peter one hero to another, and inclined his head in polite dismissal.

 _Off you go, boy._  

Dither any longer, and this would be awkward for all three of them. Not trusting his vocal cords, Peter nodded.

He strode to the lip of the building. The web fired straight up, oily silver against the ember-like haze of light pollution that oppressed the New York skyline. It splattered on a window a hundred feet above. Peter kicked off, powering around the corner of the skyscraper via momentum. He hadn’t worked with Cable before. Unfortunately, this meant that Cable hadn’t worked with him. So Peter’s enhanced hearing got to relish every second as Cable tugged Wade’s mask off completely, hoisted him to perch on his hips with legs wrapped around his waist, and growled “Finally!” into his mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

Nathan was a cold man, a hard man. All who met him reached that conclusion sooner or later.

Only those who truly knew him (a group comprised of Wade, Domino, Irene, Hope, and his AI Belle, who didn’t have much choice) understood that that hardness provided a vital defence. It protected a psyche that took the burden of responsibility upon its own shoulders, no matter how great the weight.

Straining under this one, Nathan wondered if this was what Atlas felt like before he was crushed by the world. Perhaps Sisyphus would be the better analogy. He’d been successfully lugging his sin towards that far-off hilltop, telling himself that there was no way he could have known, that it wasn’t his fault. Then he’d remembered a favored catchphrase, one which had guided him to the present day and made him the man he was.

_The ends justify the means; no matter the cost to your soul._

Nathan curled over the unmarked grave, teeth bared in anguish, and buried his face in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Dear everyone tempted to leave shitty comments about how my depiction of Peter isn't your cup of tea - please feel free to exit your browser and do some cleansing yoga instead, because I really don't care. #hateain'tgreat**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Finally, some explicit content. No non-con yet - but hopefully this chapter clears up the characterization some.**

Wade never caught him up.

That was okay. Occasionally, just every now and then, personal life had to come first. Having a past lover show up only to sock you in the nose, tell you not to murder a pedophile, and vanish again ( _after_ attempting to tie your tonsils like cherry stems, but Peter was trying not to think about that) was bound to be unnerving. Wade must’ve gone home to cool off. Or jerk off. Possibly both.

Peter was trying not to think about that either.

It wasn’t _his_ fault that he constantly drew Wade’s image to the forefront of his mind. The idiot insisted on lunging at him, invading his personal space, dancing around and pestering him in every way that zany, cancer-ridden space between his ears could cook up. Of _course_ Peter kept checking behind him. Of _course_ he started conversations, which hung disjointed and abstract in their other half’s absence.

The lack of chatter grated. Peter found himself humming, tapping his fingers, anything to break the silence. He stopped only after accidentally activating the web-shooters and gumming himself to a skip.

“Fuck,” he swore, breaking the strand. Disengaged from the web-synthesizer on his wrist, it rapidly began to disintegrate. Come morning, the sweeper assigned to this alley would find only a crumble of powder. Clean. Neat. Easy. When you relied on stealth, marking your passage with webbing was asking for you to fling open your curtains to the long lens of a paparazzi camera.

Not that Peter was feeling all that stealthy now. From the next street over, the sound of hushed voices percolated the far-off drone of traffic and the whir from the overworked electrical transformer overhead. “Didya hear that?”

A croaky scoff. “S’just a dog. Let’s get on with the deal.”

“That weren’t no dog. If someone’s there…”

Peter held his breath.

“You coppin’ out on me, man?”

“It ain’t worth getting busted over. Next time, brother; next time.”

Great. Now he was thwarting crimes with his mere presence. Normally, Peter would be pleased – any prevention was good prevention. But right then his fists yearned to pummel. If he couldn’t catch both men mid-narcotics deal, he’d shake down the dealer and confiscate his stash.

Peter could subdue him, smack him round if he tried anything, and leave him handcuffed to the railing outside the police station, which had long since been crowned ‘prime dump for criminals’. Perhaps one of his fellow heroes would’ve made a drop off earlier in the night, someone for his charge to talk to. If Peter didn’t knock his teeth out first, of course.

…He was looking for a fight. Christ, he sounded like Deadpool. What next – start swinging katanas? Distract your opponents with babble so inane and ridiculous they plead that you arrest them? Peter had the last one down, admittedly.

For the longest of times he’d fought to distance himself from the Merc with the Mouth. He’d cut back on his mid-battle banter. He acted mature around other superheroes, saving his clowning for his friends. Every time he found a snapshot of Wade labelled _Spiderman Strikes Again_ , his hands ripped the paper of their own accord.

Now though, as he chose his target, he dared entertained the fantasy further.

What would happen, if he took on Deadpool’s less murderous attributes? To start with, he might inherit some muscle. Not that it was _bad_ being wiry, especially not when you had the strength of a scaled-up arachnid to make any who underestimated you sorry. But Peter wished he looked as cool as Cap and Tony and the heavier built Avengers, if only so they stopped treating him like a delicate flower.

Okay, so that wasn’t quite accurate. He was respected, of course he was. But there was a world of difference between ‘knowing what you can do on the battlefield’ and ‘stereotyping you as a twink the moment you get drunk on New Year’s, come out as bi, and make out with Johnny Storm while slow-dancing to Westlife’.

Peter shuddered. _Westlife_. What had he been thinking?

No, Deadpool was one of the rare people who waited for him to show his colors before daubing them on him. Just in case though, Peter’d like to correct that assumption about him being a twink to Wade in person.

…Hypothetically.

If Wade agreed.

If Peter didn’t want to take advantage of his cringingly desperate need for any kind of affection, and if Wade wasn’t a maniacal murderer on his off-days.

Those sentences contained plenty of red flags. Any sane bachelor would make an abrupt about-turn and take Tony up on his offer to wing him off on a famous supermodel at the next charity gala. But it took a special sort of lunacy to go punch criminals by the cover of night, and an even more special kind to enjoy it.

Enough contemplation.

The narrow alley between apartments was lined with a gulley on one side. On the other lay numerous stuffed-to-leaking garbage bags. They spilled their putrescent innards across the passage in a slimy, stagnant sea. The man ahead leapt what he could, grimace illuminated briefly by chinks of light from upstairs windows.

“Ew. Ew. Ew.”

Peter didn’t have his luxury. He hardly noticed the mulch of liquid rot under his toes. Too busy concentrating. He stalked his prey in measured lopes, scanning each step before it fell. He was ready to spring at the slightest flare from his spider-sense – his foot still smarted from that time he’d trodden on a broken bottle. Poor Aunt May had spent her Bingo evening picking glass from his heel with tweezers.

Peter was as glad to leave the alley as the man he pursued. He melded into the shadows, as he turned to one side and noisily blew his nose into the gutter, clearing the stench of old trash and mildew.

Peter surreptitiously sniffed his own costume. Thank God it was machine-washable.

But he had a long night ahead. One which would feel longer still, given he would spend it alone.

Time to get this over with.

“Hey you!” he hollered, one hand cupped to his mouth. “Asshole in the parka!”

The man jumped. He meeped at the looming red-and-blue costume and hightailed in the opposite direction.

He even dropped his baggies. Without the excuse to run him down, Peter rose from his sprinter’s lunge and crossed the distance at a sedate walk. He weighed the fat powder-purse in his hands. It was a ziplock freezer bag, filled with a drug…

A drug Peter didn’t recognize.

Instantly, he was on the alert. All tangents involving Wade Wilson, Nathan Summers, and everything that could have occurred in five minutes, were swept to one side.

This could be bad.

This could be _really_ bad.

Peter, accustomed to patrolling alone, prided himself on his dedication to focus. It was the details that made a case; he’d learnt that from the Daily Bugle. You wanted to spin a hack story? You needed a handful of rumors. Heck, take a quote, twist it into a new context, and voila, front page story: the President had an affair with Oprah, copies sold out by ten the next morning. Honestly, given how often Spiderman’s antics had featured besides the caption ‘Public Nuisance? Or Public Menace?’ Peter was more experienced in spin than any politician.

But to create a decent story which reported impartially on the facts and synthesized an educated conclusion, you needed _quantity_ and _quality_ of information alike. You needed to know who had a monopoly on which trade. You needed to know which kids walked the street-beats, and at what times. You needed to know how the gang moved produce in and out of town; which cops were on their payroll; their favored methods for approaching new customers.

Once upon a time, Peter had been on top of that. A time before he didn’t have someone to banter with, someone distracting him...

But dwelling on that didn’t help anyone. A new narcotic was a dangerous narcotic. Peter needed to act now. Plus, there was the added bonus that adjourning to the labs meant he could take a shower and scrub the lingering whiff of garbage from his skin.

That was settled then. Peter webbed the bag to his chest before turning to hunt for a street name, orientating himself in Queens’ dingy labyrinth. He took aim, shot his webs, and receded to a speck in seconds: a fly swallowed by the vast night sky.

 

* * *

 

 

“So,” gasped Nathan, when Wade afforded him a generous ten seconds to breathe. “Who’s the kid?” Surprise staved off Wade’s next assault. He froze, lips comically pursed, and withdrew – but only far enough to squint at Nathan without going cross-eyed. “What?

“Y’know I was joking about the whole ‘introducing you’ thing, right? I mean _sure_ , you only have four fans, because you’re hunky and stoic and you wear shoulder pads that are quite frankly ridiculous, and you never admit you’re wrong –“

“There’s nothing wrong with my shoulder pads.”

“Case in point. _Unlike_ a certain twee and chipper nubile young Avenger. But not like, a _Young Avenger_ ; that’s another franchise. Oh, that Wiccan… And Miss America… And – wow, don’t get me _started_ on Loki… Did you know he can turn into a unicorn?”

“Wade,” said Nathan.

Wade hugged him tighter, clinging like a bush baby. “Yes, dear?”

“You were saying?”

“I was _saying_ , that _you’re_ a boring old fart, but Spidey’s everywhere! Children love him! He’s on lunchboxes. He’s on _underoos._ ”

Nathan blinked. “In every timeline I have visited, I have yet to find a pair of ‘Spidey underoos’.”

“You should visit my apartment more often then. In fact, how’s about now?” He underscored the words with an over-exaggerated wink. Nathan’s smile was regretful.

“Three minutes, Wade.”

“Oh.” Crestfallen, Wade tucked his chin to his chest. “I, uh. I forgot. My memory’s been doing so much better after you fixed me. But there was this thing with organ theft that I really don’t wanna talk about, and I had this SHIELD agent stuck in my head, and –“

Nathan kissed him, teasing the rest of that sentence into a happy, incoherent moan. “Two and a half minutes. Let’s make the most of them, hmm?”

It was only after he vanished, placing Wade on the ground but holding their embrace until the last moment and savoring the aroma of healing wounds and taco spice that soaked his skin, that Wade realized he hadn’t answered his question.

“He’s a friend!” he called, just in case. “See? I made a friend!”

The vortex swarmed in upon itself like a collapsing star. Wade pretended he heard a faint 'your fly’s down’ as the fabric of the universe twanged dissonantly back into place. He ripped off his gloves and caressed his smile with bare fingertips, until the swell from Nathan’s kisses faded.

It didn’t matter if Nathan hadn’t heard. He’d be back; he always was. Wade would tell him then. For now though? Home. Spidey wouldn’t mind if Wade didn’t tag tonight. He only hung out with him as a favor to Cap; he’d be glad to be rid of the nuisance. Of course, Wade planned on returning tomorrow – the kid was far too fun to tease. And it was good to have friends to distract you, in those long lonely hours before Honey got home from work.

Wade headed for the fire escape. He swung himself up and over the rail, slithering until he dangled by his fingertips. A brief release and clench and he dropped the five meters to the next level, shoulders protesting as they took his weight, then the next, and the next.

Next time Nate showed up, Wade would treat them to dinner (at his favorite food stand, if Nate made that adorable concerned face he usually did whenever Wade was around kitchen utensils).

Nate would protest – the big lug always put the needs of the many before the hunger-slash-lust-slash-love of the one. But fuck Priscilla’s _five minutes._ Just for once, couldn’t the world handle itself?

Because Wade deserved more than a session of Frenching on a blustery roof. He deserved _Nathan_. Nathan in his entirety: wined and dined and tied to Wade’s bed – as if that’d stop him disintegrating when his time ran out.

But hey. Wade could dream, right?

He could dream of Nate’s bulk bearing him down. He could dream of the contrast between T.O. and flesh as hands teased his nipples, the right body-warm and the left heated only by friction as Nate ground him into the mattress. He could dream of riding a thick ribbed cock, pulling his hair, screaming until Blind Al banged on the wall…

Eek.

Wade shuddered from his daze to find his pants damper than he last recalled.

Yep. Definitely no patrol tonight. In fact, Wade thought as he waddled along the street, he had a date with some hand lotion and a toy unicorn.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Peter didn’t have a toy unicorn.

He did, however, have a tube of lubricant and a vivid imagination. It helped with thinking up on-the-spot insults. It also, he discovered, was capable of visualizing Deadpool pinned against a filthy alley wall, while Peter fucked him through a rip in his suit.

It wasn’t that Peter _minded_ his skin, but he'd be a liar if he claimed he wasn't a little averse to it. The thought of all those sores – which doubtlessly coated him inside and out – gave his burgeoning erection second thoughts.

Wade was unfuckable, alright (although having a half-metal dick must help).

But in Peter’s mind, such realities needn’t apply. Groaning, he rocked harder into his fist, resurrecting himself with a firm slick thrust. He wouldn’t bother with a condom. Who knew where Wade’d been, but no diseases would stick to him besides cancer, and last time Peter checked that wasn’t venereal.

However, lube would be necessary. No matter how many men Wade’d taken (broad and glowy-eyed or otherwise), his sex-slackened hole would always tighten, always heal. Peter could fuck him as hard as he liked, not holding back an ounce of the strength he had to constantly reign in when interacting with college mates and Aunt May. Wade’d bounce and writhe and _take it_ , wailing, desperate, his incessant wordstream reduced to spitty garbles.

Fucking Wade silent.

Peter would never have considered the fantasy, not even a month ago.

Now, he spilled into his palms before hitting the narrative climax – Wade’s only coherent word being his name,  _Peter_ rather than _Spidey_.

“Fuck,” he breathed. His eyes slid shut. His ribcage was wracked from heaving, and his bed – Avenger’s digs rather than Aunt May’s, so wide enough to fit him and another besides – creaked as he rolled, forcing his lax body to sit.

He’d coated his hands. Milky cum cooled in his leg hairs, trickling from his spent cock. Peter couldn’t remember an orgasm that intense since he was a teenager.

Luckily, he caught the worst of it on his belly and throat, but a fair amount had still splashed the sheets. If he was home, he’d suck it up. But the problem with growing up poor and suddenly being boosted into luxury – Stark Tower luxury at that, each floor of which made any penthouse suite look tacky – was that you knew what it was like to live without it. Thus, you never wanted to go back.

He hopped off the bed to fetch tissues and spent a minute mopping at the sticky patch, tongue poking from the side of his mouth. He could always call DUM-E and have him change the sheets, but there was no way Tony wouldn’t hear about it, and then Peter wouldn’t be able to show his face at breakfast for a week.

Impossible. He couldn’t survive without Steve’s blueberry pancakes.

No, best he wait until morning and bundle them into the laundry chute. Unless he by some miracle woke before Tony (or, more likely, was accosted by him towards the end of an all-nighter while the billionaire was manic on caffeine) he wouldn’t get caught.

With that settled, Peter flopped onto the unstained side. He lobbed the crumpled tissues at the bin without looking – thank you, spider senses – and tossed an arm over his eyes, sated for the first time in years.

Everything was good. The drugs were running through the equipment in Stark’s high-tech lab. With his gear, a quick scan would take less than a minute, but Peter wanted to be thorough. He’d see the results in the morning. And then that night, he could swing forth from the Avengers’ Tower with Wade straddling his back, and gather muse-material for his next blissed-out session with Mr Rightie.

It wasn’t as good as the real thing – for which Wade would be game, Peter knew. He was so eager-to-please that he’d drop to his knees the moment Peter gave the order. But given the suddenness of this epiphany, Peter’s skeptical side insisted he nurse his new attraction until certain it wouldn’t vanish of its own accord. After that though… Well, who knew what the future held?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Massive thanks to all my lovely commenters! Please leave more thoughts below.**


	3. Chapter 3

“So?” asked Tony, bobbing about like a midge on steroids. “What’s it say?” Attempts to bat him would only be met with slopped hot coffee. As feared, Tony had been up and buzzing when Peter emerged, and the only reason Peter had let him tag down to the lab was to prevent him sprinting off to spill the beans to every other occupant in the building.

_Our little Peter’s all grown up!_

He could just imagine it. Clint would probably bake him a cake.

Peter cringed lower, resting his forearms on the centrifuge, which had been whirling the components of the drug into separation overnight. He squinted at the readout. Usually, such an action wouldn’t be necessary – Tony kept the print large, he claimed, for the sake of Steve’s ninety-year-old eyes – but for a moment he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“It says… Inconclusive?”

“Huh? That can’t be right.” Tony, fingers jittery, nudged him out the way. He began to poke arbitrary buttons. Knowing him, he was actually entering a sequence to virus-sweep the machine’s mainframe (did machines like this even have a mainframe? Did they _get_ viruses? Peter was a chemist, dammit; not a computer technician).

Peter sighed. “Many things are inconclusive, Tony. Why kiwis exist. Where marmite comes from. How your liver’s functioning at fifty.”

“Hey, I’m a recovering alcoholic. Gimme some respect.”

Usually, Peter’d banter back. He did his best, but it came out darker than intended: “Substituting coffee for whiskey isn’t good for you either. You’re gonna give yourself a prion disease, fatal insomnia style. Might snap and murder the lot of us first.”

“Oh?” Tony spared him a grin. “Someone woke up on the sticky side of the bed. What’s gnawing your noodle, spidey?”

The thought of a new drug on his streets, hurting his people. The fear that this had only occurred because he allowed it to, because recently he'd been letting his mind wander… Peter settled for the easier answer. “I’m working with Deadpool tonight.”

Tony’s expression went from cheeky, to sympathetic, to amused at his expense. “You poor soul.”

“He’s not _that_ bad…”

“Literally only you would say that.” Tony moved away, sipping in distracted slurps. “Y’know, you got the perfect test subject right there? The unkillable idiot. And we all know he’d do anything _you’d_ tell him to. His crush is as obvious as it’s pathetic.”

Tony was joking – probably. He wouldn’t actually suggest that Peter use his relationship with Wade to manipulate him into taking a drug, the effects of which they didn’t know.

Would he?

Although… he did have a point. No matter how bad the outcome, Wade would heal. Any damage done would be temporary.

And, as Tony said, this would be an excellent opportunity to test what Wade was willing to do on Peter’s command. Plus, Tony’d just confirmed something vital. _Literally only you would say that._ That settled matters – because it wasn’t just that Peter needed Wade. Given no other hero would give Deadpool the time of day (Nathan didn’t count, given he spent nine-tenths of his time jetting about the time stream in pursuit of an evil clone) Wade needed Peter too.

The dorky smile grew as he lifted the half-full powder-packet and shook it. Blue-white dust settled slowly, powdered snowflakes in low gravity.

Tonight was going to be interesting. Peter could hardly wait.

 

* * *

 

 

Wade woke as the streetlight outside his room flickered to life. He hadn’t noticed himself nod off, but such was life as a regenerating degenerate with a fucked up sleep pattern, who had nothing else to do but marathon Golden Girls reruns, work pro bono and wait for the quavery cosmic hum that preceded the arrival of a certain GI-Jesus.

…Or the call to assemble, which meant Spidey was waiting for him on their allotted roof. “Al!” he hollered. Waited for the grumble and the tap-tap-tap of a stick, followed by the screech of a Roomba in distress and a string of curses. “Don’t get up,” he called, far too late. “I’m heading early tonight – gonna do my Caped Crusader impression on a balcony somewhere.”

“Last time you did that people assumed you were a stalker and called the cops!”

“And I beat the cops up and ran, so we’re good!” Wade, wriggling his bare foot into a boot – and hopping across the floor, dislodging old takeaway boxes and empty booze bottles on the way – pumped his fists in victory when his heel skidded home. “Alright. I’ll catch ya in the morning. For now, I gotta date with a cute lil spider.”

“You never bring that boy home for dinner.” Blind Al appeared in the doorway. Her passage was clumsy yet unerring. Wade cocked his head, trying to figure for the thousandth time how she knew exactly where he was. Perhaps Daredevil gave her lessons? She delivered a smack to the back of his head, which Wade bent to enable, and wagged her wrinkled finger to and fro while he clambered out the window. “I’m startin’ to think he’s all in your head.”

“Hey, my friends are _not_ imaginary!” At Al’s crooked glare, he relented. “Not all of them. The kid definitely isn’t. Next time, I promise. Now, m’lady…” He tipped an invisible fedora. “I’m afraid I have to split. Until the morn, sweet Judy Dench.”

“It’s ‘Juliet’!” called Al after him. “And give the spider a kiss from me!”

Huh. She must’ve thought he meant _date_ -date, rather than _playdate_ – but Wade flung himself into the night before he could correct her.

 

* * *

 

 

The meet lived up to neither of their expectations.

“If we’re going for Doctor jokes, I know a good one. Goes like this – Doctor, Doctor! I’m Pagliacci! Oh wait, I spoilt Rorschach’s punchline… Um, hang on a second. That’s it! Doctor, doctor; I feel like a pair of curtains! Then you say…”

His gloved red fingers pointed at Peter like the twin barrels of an anti-aircraft gun. Peter exhaled noisily.

“Pull yourself together.”

“Yes!” Wade mimed wiping a tear. “I’m cracking up! You see? That’s so much funnier than ‘hey Wade, come to my buddy’s lab and snort some mysterious powder For Science’.”

“I said ‘please’!”

“Wrong magic word, Aladdin! Try ‘Alakazham’ next time. Or ‘Z1ON0101’.” He struck a dramatic pose, pointing to the far-off sunset. “Wanna get going? Big city, crimes to stop, damsels to distress… No wait, I got that last one wrong, didn’t I?”

Peter opened his mouth to argue – then thought better of it. He slumped his shoulders, hoping dejection would project through the mask.

“It’s to help people, Wade,” he said quietly. “You might be their only hope. I thought you wanted to be a hero?”

For a moment, he suspected he might have laid it on too thick. Then he glanced up from under his eyelashes. They brushed the polarized fabric. Wade was revealed: boot scuffing the railing on the apartment block’s roof, a kick from propelling himself onto the next. But he hadn’t left yet.

“I don’t like doctors,” he whispered.

“Doctor Banner’s a great guy, when he’s not green–“

“I don’t,” said Wade. He took a breath so deep it made Peter’s lungs ache in sympathy. “Like. Doctors.”

Initially, Peter had intended to leave Wade to the care of Bruce and his assistants. A part of him had wanted to stay – he tried to convince himself it was concerned, because who knew how poorly Wade would react to the dosage?

But he knew it was the lure of seeing him unguarded. As zany as the man’s mind was, it was as sharp as the swords he wore strapped to his muscular back. Wade was the best merc in the business – or would’ve been, if he could keep his head on straight for five minutes, or batten his conscience for the same. Thinking of him doped, sluggish, helpless, _vulnerable_ …

It shouldn’t be sexy. And yet…

Peter swallowed. “Just me then. Me, you, lab. Nothing to fear.”

Wade shrunk on himself, twisting longingly for the safety of the city and their nightly routine. “I don’t like labs either…”

 _Then we could go to my room_ , Peter wanted to say. He snapped his mouth shut just in time. No. That would be a step too far. He felt disgusted at the thought – dirty, like his mind had wandered to a dark place without his permission. But at the same time, so very, very eager…

Because Wade liked him. Everyone knew. They ribbed him mercilessly about it, in fact – that and revved into ‘Protective Gear’, because obviously Peter’s stature meant he was a feeble kid who required protection. Add to this that Peter had heard Wade’s bluster about being a _manly man_ (usually doled out after Peter stumbled on him in various iterations of his favorite frilly maid outfit, which had haunted Peter’s dreams ever since)?

Wade evidently had _some_ hang-ups regarding his sexuality.

That didn’t change the fact that drugging someone was wrong. Drugging someone for the purpose of sex was sick, disgusting, borderline _evil_.

But sex wasn’t on Peter’s mind (no more than usual for a man his age). If that someone volunteered themselves to test mystery drugs, and if their experience _happened_ to enlighten a few desires that had, until then, been loitering in their subconscious – well. There was nothing wrong with that.

Nevertheless, it was safer to opt away from the bedroom option. If only so nobody got the wrong idea.

“Sorry,” he said. “Lab’s the best controlled area we have. It’s also able to be locked down – hulk-proofed entirely, in fact. If you tweak out on us you’re not going to hurt anyone.”

The insinuation that such a thought had crossed Wade’s mind was effective. Wade puffed up like a proud puppy. Then abruptly deflated, no doubt scoping this hypothetical scenario in his mind and finding it still to be far, far from his comfort zone.

It was time to pull out the big guns.

“It’s okay,” said Peter, turning his back. “I’ll ask Wolverine. You can patrol alone tonight.”

Wade sucked air through his mask as if it was the last he’d taste. That shocked, fearful rush should’ve made Peter more ashamed than it did. Instead, he felt only the twinge of satisfaction as gravel crunched under Wade’s approaching feet.

Breath on his ear. Arms looped around his neck. Wade wriggled onto his back, all 180 pounds of him, thighs tight around his sinewy waist. It would’ve looked comical – the six-foot-plus mercenary clinging to the torso of a guy who peaked five-nine when he woke up in the mornings, whose build could be politely described as ‘lean’.

But then again, most folks didn’t realize that Peter could benchpress Wade, Big Bertha, and Iron Man in full costume without breaking sweat. Swinging from roof to roof with a merc in tow was the equivalent of a lazy stroll.

Taking the silent affirmation for what it was, Peter grabbed Wade’s thighs and readjusted that bulk, shifting him with ridiculous ease. “There,” he grunted when he felt Wade tense. Then, in explanation: “Knee was squashing my kidney. Drop a few pounds, would you?”

And just like that, they were back to the regularly scheduled banter. Wade mock-slapped the back of his head, as Peter strode to the edge of the building and readied his first web.

“Ex- _cuse_ me, mister! I’ll have you know I’m watching this delicate figure. S’why I switched to that juicer diet One-In-Ten-Mums recommended to me on google ads… Nice gal, that. Weird name – I think it’s Korean.”

Peter snorted. “You do not diet.” He’d caught glimpses of Wade’s lifestyle throughout their burgeoning partnership. If he’d insist on one thing when they took the next step, it was that the Mexican had to go.

Wade sniffed, mortally offended. “Hey, last time I got stuck in a refrigerator for a thousand years without any food my tushie was first to shrink. We can’t have these scrummy buns losing their pertness now, can we?”

 _No,_ thought Peter. He jumped. Wade gleefully tossed his head back to relish the air rush.  _No, we certainly cannot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sorry this took so long! I'll try and finish the next update quickly, but uni is tightening its deathgrip. We'll see how I do. As always, nothing motivates me like comments! Please leave yours below. I'm grateful for every one!!**


	4. Chapter 4

There was nothing so wonderfully plastic as a child’s brain.

Not literally, of course. Peter didn’t think. He also hoped he never found out.

But the sheer number of lessons learnt on the trek from Infancy to Adulthood (also known as the transition from ‘Small Whingey Creature’ to ‘Large One’) was monumental. Perhaps most widely known was object perception: the knowledge that when an item, person, beloved toy, pet, or milk bottle vanished from one’s immediate view, that same item, person, beloved toy, etc., did not cease to exist.

A baby’s lack of self-awareness prevented them from fathoming the conceptual awfulness of _non-existence_. To be afraid of nothing you had to be aware that you yourself were something, and to be aware that you yourself were _something_ took cognitive ability beyond that of what was, by all accounts, a seven-pound fleshsack of screams, poop, and vomit.

So in a way, Peter thought, chin resting glumly in hand as he watched the Cages’ little girl make her wide-eyed survey of the Avenger Tower breakfast room, the babies had it lucky.

Being in love was much like a return to childhood. You fixated on an individual, your mind revolving around them like spokes on a wheel.

Only when that center-pivot was out of your sight, it wasn’t that they disintegrated into insignificance. You did. Those spokes splintered and broke, untethered from their mooring, and you were left holding pieces of yourself in a vast nothing.

“That’s enough moping for you, mister." Clint plopped on the chair opposite. He kicked Peter under the table, jerking him to life. “You in there, spider-kid?”

“I’m not a kid,” Peter reminded him, with the tedium of one who got carded for alcohol at twenty-five.

“Sure, sure…” His spider-sense warned him Clint was about to ruffle his hair. Peter ducked out of the way. “Hey, how’d last night go? Y’know, with Wilson?”

Peter swallowed a crackly mouthful of toast. Pushed to his feet.

“Watch JARVIS’ footage,” he said. His half-finished breakfast was dumped on the sideboard. Steve, in charge of washing up (as oldest and most responsible) raised an eyebrow.

“Most important meal of the day, Peter.”

“Yeah, well…” Peter shrugged on his jacket, heading for the door. “I just lost my appetite.”

 

* * *

 

 

Peter had entered into this hoping that whatever the drug was, it would lower Wade’s defences: leave him clinging and vulnerable so that Peter could care for him. Then Wade would acknowledge him through more than cheeky come-ons – acknowledge him as better relationship material than some ancient cyborg-grump forever zipping in and out of the future.

But not even Peter could convince himself that he’d been successful.

Despite Wade’s jitters – “You know this is a fanfic, right? And you know what strange drugs mean in fanfic? This shit’s sex pollen, Spidey. I’ll hump every surface in the building.” – when the drug’s effects made themselves known, in the brief window before Wade’s healing factor doused them, there was no sudden blink of an eureka-lightbulb in Wade’s eyes, no passionate kisses or desperate rutting.

Thank God. Tony had a half billion cameras in the laboratory, and Peter, as a scientist, knew the importance of keeping the place sterile. He also knew that regardless of this fact, he was still disappointed.

Because it wasn’t sex pollen. It was something much, much worse – for both of them.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony called him into his office later that day.

Well. Not _his_ office. Pepper’s. Pepper had insisted on the distinction after coming in one morning to discover the dissected carcass of a missile on her desk.

Unfortunately, all attempts to keep him out only made him more eager to enter. If Peter were Pepper, he’d tell her to substitute the swanky biolock for a basic padlock: far too easy for Tony’s overactive mind. Cut out the challenge; cut out the fun.

Kind of like with Deadpool. Playing hard to get kept Wade’s interest. But feigning apathy was difficult when you had a terrified mercenary crumpled on your lap, damp lashless eyelids tickling your neck.

“So,” said Tony grimly. He rested his hands palm-flat on the sleek glass. Pepper’s office was minimalist, modernist, and disgustingly organized. Not a stray paperclip in sight. “Fear toxin in Queens.”

All signs pointed to that conclusion. Yet Peter couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d missed something.

“I’m not sure. I mean, that’s what it _looks_ like. But I just… I have this… gut thingie.”

Tony’s eyebrow raised. “A ‘gut thingie’? A spider-sense, you mean?”

“No – not exactly.” Peter, seated on the chair before the desk, squirmed – unable to shake the feeling he had been summoned to the principal and the chastisement had yet to begin. “Just a hunch. When Wade was… Well, y’know.”

“On your lap,” Tony supplied. He managed not to grin. It looked to be a close call. “Oh yeah. I watched the footage. Doctor Banner insisted on it – and he wants to talk with you after this.”

Great. Peter sagged. They were tag-teaming him: good cop and bad.

“I didn’t mean for that –“ he started, in a small voice. Tony cut him off with a wave of his oil-stained hand.

“Yeah, yeah. I believe you. I mean, who’d want Wilson up close and personal like that? But I’m just here for the academic talk, Parker. Now, this gut feeling… Any further descriptors? What set it off?”

A prolonged half-hour of brainstorming later, entirely fruitless but a welcome distraction from the memories (Deadpool curling into his touch, eyes squeezed shut as if Peter warded away faceless men in starched white labcoats that only Wade could see) Peter was released. He sauntered from the office with a confidence he didn’t feel. Time for round two.

 

* * *

 

 

“Peter,” said Bruce seriously. He pushed his glasses up from where they’d slipped to perch across the slim buttontip of his nose. “I’m worried that you might allow Deadpool too close.”

Peter, expecting to be chewed out for cultivating a non-professional atmosphere in the lab, taking advantage of a person who was by all rights mentally handicapped if not clinically insane, cosying up to an ex-merc, and a half-million other ethical concerns, opened his mouth and shut it again.

Banner perceived an interruption. He held up his hand. “Let me finish. I know you’re a hero. I know Steve has asked you to work with Deadpool on your midnight runs. And Deadpool’s certainly proved he’s in earnest about learning how to tread on the right side of the moral lines – even if he does slip up.”

Someone else believed Deadpool was more than just a masquerading mercenary? Peter perked in his chair.

“However,” Bruce said. His voice lowered, and his expression with it. “He is still dangerous. His mind harbors untold psychoses. I know you are an independent young man, and I know you want to help him – but I would warn you, allowing close physical contact may be interpreted by him as an expression of sexual interest.”

He paused at that, as if he expected Peter to butt in and defend himself. When no such interference occurred – Peter’s mind struggling to process that Bruce thought his flirting was unintentional – he coughed into his fist. He looked nervous as a father giving his first Birds and Bees talk. Which, now Peter thought about it, was pretty much what this was.

“Now I know you aren’t attracted to Deadpool. The question is, what he knows. I fear that this could become a dangerous situation for you, if he suspects you’re – for want of a better term – leading him on.”

If anyone was doing the leading, it was Wade. Although he hadn’t been last night – Peter’d recognized that smell on his skin. True fear, pure and undiluted.

But no – of course, Bruce was worried about _Peter_. He was the Avengers’ baby-boy. Did they all take it in turns to choose who’d coddle him next?

Peter crossed his arms. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know. I’ve seen you fight – I’m well aware of your abilities in that regard.” Sighing, Banner turned back to his work. His shoulders hunched in his loose pullover, their thinness belying the vast green beast that lurked beneath. “Just… be careful, Peter. And don’t underestimate Deadpool. It’s easy to imagine him a fool, but he’s a fool who’s ended lives for lesser perceived offences than flirtation. That’s all I ask.”

For all his irritation, Peter couldn’t fault him for being afraid.

Bruce didn’t know Wade like he did.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter decided twelve hours was as much ‘alone-time’ as Wade needed. He’d asked for some last night, in a hoarse little voice that meant his throat had yet to heal from all that screaming.

The sound had hurt Peter’s heart. But not as much as the thought that he’d ruined things between them. Forcing Wade to imbibe the toxin could’ve been perceived as an irredeemable blow to their friendship – best Peter go smooth things over before Wade blew them out of proportion.

He knew Wade’s address. He told himself it was for business purposes. Always a good idea to have a place to go in a crisis, where you knew help would be waiting – and Wade’s apartment, which he shared with a woman too old to incite Peter’s jealousy, sat slap in the middle of downtown Queens.

Heck, he could pretend he’d swung by on patrol.

But how to enter? The windows were shut, and Peter just didn’t feel right about ringing the buzzer on the porch. Not in full costume.

His decision was made for him. The stooped head of an elderly black woman shuffled towards what could only be the kitchen. At least Peter hoped it was a kitchen, or the black smoke-crust clinging to the glass would be hard to explain. Grinning under his mask, he webbed to the building and crawled vertically, veering clear of the most well-lit patches. Then he stuck his head up, gopher-style.

…Or that was what he would’ve done, if he was like Deadpool and had enough voices in his head to drown out the little one reminding him that her heart might not be up for sudden shocks. Peter couldn’t think of many crimes worse than forcing Wade to relive those dark spaces in his life, the ones Peter would help him overcome if only Wade would let him. However, giving his roomie a heart-attack might make the cut.

Peter went for a hand instead. He gave it a jaunty little wave, senses informing him that the woman stood directly in front of him. No response followed. Not even a scream (or, knowing the sort of company Wade kept, a gunshot).

Gopher it was.

Peter popped up his head. And found himself staring at a pair of sunglasses. “Um,” he said. The curly white head tilted disarmingly towards his voice, but Peter couldn’t shake the certainty that she wasn’t seeing him. Working up his nerve, he knocked. “I’m a friend of Wade’s,” he shouted through the glass. “Can you let me in?”

 

* * *

 

 

“I know who you are,” said the woman. She’d introduced herself as Al, after helping Peter through the window and informing him that while she was fresh out of tea, she’d found a bag of cannabis down the back of the sofa and was willing to share.

(Peter politely declined. He decided to plead ignorance of what ‘Mary-Jane’ meant if they were busted in a drug-raid).

Al didn’t seem malevolent. Just like she’d lived through a lot – and with Wade being Wade, _a lot_ was enough to put most folks into the ground. However, her words weren’t reassuring. Especially when addressed to (what seemed like) the last superhero in New York who cared about his secret identity. Peter managed to raise his overfull cup to his lips without slopping on his lap.

“Do you now?” he asked.

Luckily, blackmail wasn’t Al’s endgame. Al wagged her finger in his face, her own lukewarm cup set on a sofa arm. Or what had once been a sofa arm. It could’ve been substituted for a cat’s well-loved scratching post without anybody noticing. Peter had asked, but Al’s only answer had been a shrug, and the words ‘Wade’s modern art’. This whole apartment was a masterpiece - if he was channelling Tracey Emin.

“You’re his little spider-friend,” she said.

Peter stiffened. Blushing was stupid – but at least Al remained in the dark, literally and figuratively alike. “He talks about me?”

“Of course! Doesn’t have many other friends besides me, you and Weasel. Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Wade was Out, Al said: the sort of ‘out’ that made him imagine capital letters. Who knew what he was doing? Who he was hurting? Who he was _meeting?_

Peter couldn’t hold back the sneer. He told himself it didn’t matter if Al couldn’t see it – but she must’ve heard it in his voice.

“Don’t forget Nathan,” he said.

“Oh, _Nathan_.” Al grimaced. Peter suspected that behind those dark semicircles of the sunglasses she might be rolling her eyes, and felt a strong wave of camaraderie. “Wade doesn’t talk about him much, besides waxing lyrical about Spatulas and Sun cream. Boy got his heart broken a hundred times too many, chasing around after that one.”

_It didn’t look so broken when I saw them the other day._

Peter resisted the urge to share that quip – whinging would get him nowhere. Fact of the matter was, Nathan just couldn’t compete. He and Wade scarcely qualified as a _relationship_.

And hadn’t Al just confirmed it? Nathan was no good for Wade. Never had been, never would be. Heck, given how easily the merc responded to bones thrown his way, it made more sense that Nathan was using him.

For fun. For jobs. For sex…

Not that Wade was much to look at – but who knew? Perhaps scar-kinks were all the rage in the future.

Peter’s fists clenched, making the lycra squeak. One thing was for sure. When he told Wade how he felt and Wade accepted, he’d cut Cable from his life for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Admit it! Who thought I was going to succumb to the Cheap Sex-Pollen Plot Device?**
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> **Next chapter will feature explicit consensual Nate/Wade loving.**
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> **Please comment!**
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> ****
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> ****


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I'm sorry this took so long! Stupid exams. :shakes fist:**
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>  **Still, NSFW-stuff makes up for it, right?**
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> ****

“Use this to contact me,” Nathan said.

“It’s for emergencies,” Nathan said.

Nathan should have known that ‘emergency’ in Wade-Wilsonese meant ‘I need a second opinion on taco fillings’. Nevertheless, he had yet to discard the timeline communicator. Hearing Wade ramble grounded him. Always the same gravelly lisp. The subject might change – you never jumped in the same river, just as you never held the same discussion with Deadpool – but the voice didn’t. No matter how often Wade was shot or disembowelled, that remained immutable. And in a complex and contingent universe, each planck chock-a-block with possibilities that could irreparably disrupt futurity, Nathan needed all the grounding he could get.

Which was why when Belle murmured that he had a waiting message, Nathan ordered for it to be played without hesitation. He regretted it instantly. Top of his list of ‘poor places for a conversation’: hiding behind a hefty chunk of concrete, head tucked to his knees to avoid the sweep of roach-lights above.

Of course Stryfe would come here. He must’ve hoped to distract him – this place held many memories for a Son of Askani.

Askani’son.

Dayspring.

Cable.

Priscilla.

Nathan had so many names, there were times he lost track. He liked those moments. They tended to occur sequentially, spliced from battles and their aftermaths. When Nathan fought besides friends, it didn’t matter whether he’d lodged in the twenty-first Century or the fiftieth. For a brief and blissful snatch his mind allowed its eternal documentation of past and future to float away, and Nathan lived in the present. He was an X-Men (or a Six Pack Mercenary, or an honorary Avenger). Not a time-traveller. Not destiny-bound to Apocalypse, Hope, his wayward cloned brother… Not even ripped from one time and transplanted into another, an infanthood migration as ugly and brutal as the virus engulfing his left side.

…Wade had mentioned something about the virus being curable in ‘another continuity’. But Wade was Wade, and back then Nathan had been more concerned with curling those sleek silver fingers to the right angle inside him.

“Wade?” he asked. A sentry patrolled not far from here, sensors attuned to the rumble of a human voice. Nathan concentrated his telekinesis, allowing a hint of T.O. to brush his vocal chords. It swallowed the fleshy vibration in steel. It’d take a heavy meditation session – and a heavier headache – to be rid of it again. But such were the stakes.

What concerned him more was that Wade had yet to say a word.

“Wade,” he repeated, frowning. “This’s the emergency channel.”

Still nothing. He heard breathing, at least. Hunkering forwards on scorched dust, Nate allowed his gun to dip from its constant ready – Belle would warn him if anyone approached. He addressed his partner with the clinical efficiency of a soldier. “Wade, are you injured?” A shudder in that breath. Not much, but Nathan heard it. His fingers tightened around the grip, squeaking on the rubber. “Wade,” he prompted.

“…No.”

“Are you in danger?”

“No.” The simple dialogue structure demanded answers, albeit monosyllabic ones. Nathan supposed they were better than nothing.

“Is someone else in danger?” Then, after the negative affirmation, just to cover his bases: “Have you done something you shouldn’t have?” That being Cable-code for _killed someone who didn’t deserve it_. What exactly ‘deserve’ entailed was still debated furiously whenever they were left alone together for five minutes – but Wade’s small-worded replies sounded so uncharacteristic that Nathan couldn’t contemplate being judgmental. “Wade,” he continued, as the silence persisted. “I won’t patronize you and insist that everything’s going to be alright. But if you tell me what’s wrong, perhaps I can figure out how to help?”

A sharp inhalation. Then a laugh. It registered as shaky to Nathan’s ears, but loud – he tightened his finger on the trigger guard, checking his perimeter to ensure he wasn’t about to fall prey to bug-ambush from behind. “Wade?”

“I’m being stupid,” Wade said.

“No surprises there.” Usually a wisecrack incited a jab in return. At least a haughty pretense at offence. That came alright – but too late, as if Wade had believed his dismissal before remembering that (despite common consensus) Nathan actually did have a sense of humor.

“How very dare you, Summers! I’m shocked and disgusted at such an insinuation –“ Wade was faking _something._ Nathan’s mind spiraled off on a rollercoaster of potentialities: Wade had murdered the future president, Wade had started another World War, Wade had pissed off someone powerful enough to make him stay dead… He cast those thoughts aside however, at the suspicion that Wade wasn’t trying to hide what he’d done. He was hiding what he _felt._

Flashbacks to Irene’s frustrated attempts at relationship counselling.

Letting his rifle sit sideways across his knees, Nathan massaged his forehead. T.O. ridges dug into the bridge of his nose, a pinch away from crushing the cartilage. “I’ll be there in five,” he growled.

Stryfe could wait. Some things were more important.

 

* * *

 

 

Nathan teleported to his location. Bodyslide-by-two might be out-of-action, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep tabs.

Wade had abandoned his apartment in favor of a safehouse. It was one of several: musty, anonymous hovels dotted across New York, ripe with memories for the both of them.

Stained mattresses. Sweat trailing the curve of an arched neck. The grunt and moan as bodies met, parted, met again; fighting, fucking, energy snapping like coiled vipers in the blink-fast meeting of blue and brown eyes…

No hint of that now. Pathetic fallacy had worked its wonders. The clouded sky drenched everything in dreary grey, from Wade’s crude, childish cave-paintings to the man himself.

Nathan was surprised not to find the contents of his brains coating the wall behind him. He marched over, pale skin melding from the shadows, intimidating without quite realizing it.

“What happened,” he growled.

Wade’s shoulders had relaxed once he’d pegged the intruder’s identity. Now they stiffened again. “I, I posted a gnarly comment on reddit and now I have sixty downvotes –“

“Wade.”

“I ate bad enchiladas?”

“You do that every other week.” A perk of visiting every foodstand in New York on a rotating roster.

“Had another sex-dream about Rosie O’Donnell – look Nate, I appreciate your tight metal ass showing up here to brighten my day; truly I do. But if you want me to admire that hiney, you oughta turn around and head for the door. I told you it was nothing. And anyway, don’t you have future shtick to get back to? Heh. You’d make a crappy Dr Emmet Brown. Or not – if we’re talking the porno version. …Wait _is_ there a porno version of _Back to the Future?_ Or do I need to quit eating spicy food before bed?”

“If it’s nothing,” said Nathan, with the smarmy assurance of a schoolteacher, “telling me should be no problem.”

Perched on his rat-nibbled C4 armchair, Wade miserably sank until his chin touched his chest. “Fuck you, Summers.”

Wade’s apartment was Spartan. Although that word assumed a militaristic order that Wade had never possessed, even in his army days. Wallpaper peeled from chipped plasterboard. The furniture looked dusty and tattered from ill-use, and a patch of something dubious sprouted at the corner of his window. Nathan would assume mold, but he gave Wade the benefit of the doubt and tried to convince himself it was bonsai. Still, nomads like them claimed homes wherever they could. It could have been bulldozed for use as a landfill site and Nathan would be comfortable– if only because of the company.

Nathan propped his gun on the wall. Ergonomic the grip might be, but he’d become so accustomed to it his tendons had cramped to its shape. Wade, watching him flex range-of-motion back into his fingers, sniggered into his fist.

“Arthritis?”

Nathan squeezed his knuckles, wincing. “If it keeps raining I’ll find out. For now…” He put on a show of discarding the soldier: zipping his costume down to his collarbones, rotating kinks from his shoulders, scratching the fresh stubble on his chin. There wasn’t space for two on the chair – at least, not two of their build – and Nathan had had enough of sleeping, sitting, and hiding on bare ground for a lifetime. He pulled over Wade’s footstool – crafted from the same lumpy grey explosive with a loving if haphazard hand. “Let’s talk.”

“Careful with the wiring,” Wade muttered. “Although if it goes off, it might help remove that stick from your –“

Nathan brushed fingers over Wade’s knee. Tiny sensors embedded in the metal sang to life, reporting the quiver of muscles. Any tension in Wade’s posture drained towards that touch, like a lake siphoning into a sinkhole. Wade sighed so deeply it sounded as if he’d burst a lung, and propped his boots on Nathan’s lap. They were dirty. Time-hopping left little leave for showers, so complaining would be hypocritical. Nathan busied himself with the Velcro, hulling shin-guards from spandex. He didn’t probe any further. Not verbally, at least. Instead, he concentrated on the scrape of each strap, the timbre of Wade’s husky breaths, the pulse that quivered beneath the skin, only perceptible through the T.O…

As ever, Wade would talk in his own time.

”Um. So. It started like this…”

There was a special kind of smugness in having that prediction fulfilled. Nathan was the posterboy for knowing what happened next, but Wade threw all his calculations into skirmish. He swallowed the smirk as he loosened the final coupling and eased the boot from Wade’s heel. Its journey over his arches, accompanied by a waft of foot-odor, helped him maintain his sober expression.

Then a name in Wade’s story caught his attention. “Spiderman?”

“The kid I patrol with – you met him last time you swung by. Ha, swung! Like Spidey! Accidental pun.”

Technically his ‘ _last_ ’ didn’t correlate to Wade’s, and even if it did, ‘ _lastness_ ’ as a concept had zero relevance; not when human history played out simultaneously as both rectilinear and cyclical…

Nathan didn’t bother explaining intersecting timelines though. He suspected Wade already knew. 

“Oh yes, Spiderman. Your friend?” He knew how rare those were for Wade. Thus, the crumple of his face – free of its mask, as it usually was when the two of them were alone –felt like a plunge into an ice-lake.

Nathan leaned over Wade’s legs, grabbing a wrist in each hand. The pulse was stronger here, more noticeable, and it fluttered impossibly faster as Wade clocked Nathan’s dark expression.

“Is he okay? Is he dead? What happened?”

Wade tried to pull away. He slipped the human hand easy enough, but T.O. was harder to fool. When he yanked hard enough to pop his shoulder, Nathan relinquished the grip of his own accord, moving back and giving him space. He didn’t let up though.

“Tell me,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

Relief. That was what he felt after hearing Wade’s story. Relief, and a little irritation. He’d left his mission for this?

…But no. It obviously bothered Wade; ergo it was important.

“He didn’t know that the drug would make you hallucinate. And he stayed with you, like any friend should.”

His attempts at rationality made Wade’s mouth downturn. “I _know_. But something... Something didn’t feel right. About that situation. About any of it.”

Nathan swept his thumbs in soothing circles over Wade’s forearms. “Does anything feel right after an experience like that?”

“I guess not…” Wade trailed off. He studied the passage of Nathan’s digits as if disconnected from the scarred flesh they stimulated. “Just. Tell me you wouldn’t have made me do it?”

Oh. So that was the problem. It’d be easy for Nathan to lie – but he’d promised not to play any more mindgames. “…What were the stakes?”

“Oh – you – !”

Perhaps he deserved the kick in the gut. Perhaps he deserved a lot of things – up to and including the furious yank of Wade’s mask over his eyes as he dislodged his legs from Nathan’s lap, scrambling upright while Nathan wheezed for breath.

“Look, _Cable_. Sometimes I don’t wanna hear the truth, okay? I don’t _wanna_ know I’m expendable, that I’m… I’m the freakin’ energizer bunny, or Wil E. Coyote after a six-pack of energy drinks, or whatever!” He effected falsetto. “Oh it’s okay, it’s just Wade! Kill him and he pops back up again! He’s a regular Caddyshack gopher! So test your drugs on him, shoot him, whatever! So long as it’s for The Greater Good he won’t mind! Doesn’t he _want_ to be a hero?” This time it’s a hand that introduces itself to Nathan’s chest, somewhere between a smack and a shove. “Because that’s what heroes do, isn’t it Nate? They sacrifice themselves. You’re certainly a dab hand at it. But… but I hear this from everyone, okay? I don’t want to hear it from _you_.”

“Wade, I –“

“I want to be the one people choose. Just once! Is that too much to ask? I want someone else to take the fall, someone else to get hurt!” Wade blathered on before Nate could fit a word in edgeways, deflecting his attempt to clasp his shoulder – a small intimacy: the first they perfected back before Providence fell. “It’s selfish, I know. When most folks die they don’t come back. …Well, you and Spidey are exceptions – but we can blame Marvel retconning for that. I just wanna be someone’s first choice, Nathan!”

Would it be trite to bring up that he’d already died for Wade once? Definitely. Especially when that may well have something to do with Wade’s anger. As the only person willing to sacrifice themselves for Wade rather than insisting on the opposite, Nathan had expectations to fulfill.

He batted Wade’s next flail to one side. He clamped his shoulder tight enough to make him hiss – but it worked. Wade unwound. Once satisfied the wrath had run its course – better directed at him than Spiderman; the boy had been doing what he felt necessary, and it wouldn’t be fair to let Wade ruin that friendship because he needed someone to yell at – Nathan released him, trading his frown for a faint smile. “Next time there’s a drug that needs testing, tell them to get Wolverine on speed-dial.”

Heavens knew why _that_ made Wade snap and punch him in the face. But Nathan, grinning as he rolled with the blow and swung back to return his own, couldn’t bring himself to mind.

Where they were concerned, fights were practically foreplay.

 

* * *

 

 

Dust puffed as Nathan crashed through a pile of ammo-crates stacked in the corner of the room, like spores from an artificial fungus. Wade followed. He was a whirlwind: punches, kicks, sneaky elbows. No weapons – a silent agreement. This fight wasn’t looking to hurt.

It was looking to excite, however. And it did a mighty fine job.

“Damn,” panted Wade, darting to thumb sweat from Nate’s jaw. He danced away before Nathan could wrap him in a bear-hug and bring this game to its natural close. “Getting slow in your old age?”

Nathan answered with a snarl and a lunge. Wade, not expecting full-frontal offensive, toppled like a scotch pine. Nathan landed heavily. He winced when he heard a rib crack. Pushing his weight into his arms, he told Wade a sincere “Sorry.” Out of the generosity of his heart, Wade forgave him. He peeled up his mask, gave Nathan a cheeky grin (and a cheekier grope) and dragged him down to kiss.

Battling Wade was exhilarating. But nothing came close to fucking him. He was a tangle of scars and energy: heart fast as a rabbit’s, fingers and toes twitching as if each press of Nathan’s lips contained charge. His mouth was sloppy-eager and enthusiastic. When he hooked his legs over Nathan’s lower back they both tried to grind at once – resulting in clonked pelvises and Nathan’s bitten tongue.

“Ow,” said Nathan. Wade smiled, beatific as a Madonna. His lips were painted glossy red.

“First blood.”

“Hm.” Nathan smeared it, relishing the scarred softness of Wade’s mouth, slippery with spit and blood. “I think of you whenever I spill it.”

“Romantic.”

“Like you’re any better, Mr ‘My Heart Is A Fitting Valentine’s Gift’ –“

“A- _hem_ , that was a metaphor for the capitalist exploitation of Valentine’s true meaning…”

Segues in the bedroom came included in the Wade-package. Nathan let him waffle as he fumbled open the collar around his neck. It came loose, Wade’s throat bobbing hungrily above it. They both came to the consensus at once, Wade tipping his chin back as Nathan located the base of the costume zipper and unrasped it before tightening the collar once more.

“You look like you do in my dreams,” he whispered. A suck on Wade’s jugular had him whining. The thighs that bracketed Nathan’s hips fell impossibly wider – for all his gawkiness on the battlefield, Wade was nothing if not flexible. “I want to kiss you, touch you, everywhere… Give me something to remember.”

 _When I have to leave_. Nathan didn’t say those words, but he saw awareness of them cross Wade’s face. Awareness: sorrow, understanding, impotent anger… But for once, Wade didn’t give any of them voice.

“Go on then,” he said.

Hooking arms over broad shoulders, Wade allowed Nathan to lift him into his lap. His body, more gymnastic than Nathan’s wrestler, was marvellously firm and fluid. Muscles bunched and stretched, turning Wade’s silhouette into a vision somehow masculine and curvaceous. Nathan traced those swells, watching his hands flutter down Wade’s frame as if it were clay on the wheel.

Chest – nipples peaking to his touch. Arms – hairless but rough with gnarled tissue, scars swarming away from Nathan’s touch like shoals from a shark. Abdominal muscles – brushing his own, heaving like the tide with Wade’s hungry gasps.

Once he reached his waist, he shifted the peeled-down costume until he had unlimited access to the knobbles of his hips and the divots at the small of his back. Then, looking Wade straight in the eye, shimmied it further still. Wade had to kneel so the spandex wasn’t trapped under his own weight. He seated himself immediately once Nate had rid him of it, his warmth and his weight a welcome return.

“You too,” he grunted, plucking Nathan’s garb. “I get shy if I’m the only one starkers.”

They couldn’t have that. Nathan stripped as fast as he could. Wade’s continued presence on his lap complicated things, but Nate had faced worse odds.

It ended with him standing, Wade clutching his front with arms and legs while Nathan wriggled the navy spandex to dangle off his boots.

Wade, glancing down, giggled. “Hobbled. Just the way I like it.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “As if I’d ever run from someone as beautiful as you.”

Perfect thing to say. Nate treated himself to the close-up sight of a blush pooling on Wade’s cheekbones.

Not many things could shut Wade up. The b-word, as it turned out, was one of them. Especially when said with full earnestness, as Nathan cupped his blistered cheeks and kissed him with no aversion – ever-fascinated by the texture, the smell, the taste. After a full minute passed with no response but the flustered blink of Wade’s eyes, Nathan lowered them both to kneel, before calmly grabbing Wade under the thighs and lifting him until the legs on his hips rested over his shoulders.

“Oh – _oh_.”

“You’re beautiful everywhere. Here.” The base of his thighs had always been sensitive. When that intimate line was assaulted by something warm and damp – something that could only be Nate’s tongue – Wade tossed back his head, collar stretching over the tendons in his throat. He needed the support of both Nathan’s hands to keep from toppling.

“Here too.” Tipping Wade vertical once more – and he loved how those big hands could haul him about, easy as if he were filled with feathers, fast enough to make him dizzy – Nathan finally paid attention to the cock batting his cheek. He breathed moist air on the tip before rippling his lips along the underside, an inescapable pressure that made lightning pop behind Wade’s eyelids.

“Definitely here.” Now Wade was being eased into a new position. He wound up tipped on a decline, elevated from his crotch at Nathan’s face to his upper back, propped on white-haired kneecaps. Nathan cupped him under the buttocks. He gathered a thick, meaty handful, tugging the cheeks apart as Wade’s toes curled helplessly behind his ears.

Cool air stroked his crack. Then warm, as Nathan exhaled. If Wade crunched up, he could just make out the grooves of calm concentration in Nathan’s forehead as he nudged Wade’s balls with his nose and dabbled his tongue around his tight-puckered hole.

“F-fuck, _Christ_ , Bea Arthur on a pogo stick! Nate, if that was a crack about my ass being prettier than my face, I’m gonna, I’m gonna…“

He was going to do _something_ to Nathan. But like hell if he could remember what. Brain fuzzing to mush, Wade let himself dangle deadweight, slave to Nathan’s hands and the blazing probe of his tongue. Man must be making up for lost time. He rubbed his stubbled cheeks on Wade’s perineum and inner thighs, hard enough to tenderize but not enough to scratch.

Each lap pulled at the tight muscle, patient and insistent in equal measure. Wade writhed, clamping Nathan’s head between his legs in his desperation to have him inside.

“How many licks to get to the centre of a Wade-pop,” he breathed. “A-one… A-two…” Nathan’s tongue breached. “A-three,” Wade managed to stutter out, before Nathan's incisors grazed a fresh-formed scar ridge, one which sat right over that squirmy spot at the crux of thigh and crotch.

Wade whimpered, swore, and came in a creamy arc all over his chest.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s been a while, okay!”

“I’m not judging you. It’s perfectly acceptable to come during rimming.”

“But – but rimming’s _foreplay!_ We didn’t get to the good shit! Why do you think these dweebs are here, unless they want some hot cyborg-on-zombie-reject action?”

Nathan decided not to question why Wade was waving at a blank wall. Blank except a fist-sized hole, and one of Wade’s messy scrawls, which filled the gaps between the tatty wallpaper. _The Fourth_ , this one read. Whatever that meant.

“Wade, you have a refractory period of five minutes. _Maximum._ If it bothers you so much, you’re more than welcome to put your mouth to alternate use –“

That turned out to be an effective means of shutting both of them up.

 

* * *

 

 

When both erections had been satisfied – Wade’s multiple times, as was custom; when he got horny he got _horny_ , and his body reacted to physical stimulation long after any other would’ve collapsed from exhaustion – Nathan bundled them over to Wade’s mattress.

They collapsed together, Wade bouncing on Nathan. Half the stuffing and all the springs evacuated through the mattress’s seams. But not even that could mar the mellow languidness of the evening.

As the clouds darkened from grey to black, sun sinking beyond the horizon, Nathan sandwiched their sweaty bodies. No duvet was required. Wade’s bodyheat was as overactive as the rest of him; he made a very convenient thermal blanket.

“I’m me,” said Wade, stroking the fuzz on the right half of Nathan’s chest. Nathan, half asleep, cracked an eye. “No one can replace that, not even if they heal. Not Wanda. Not Alex. Not Wolverine. Not even that ginger World of Warcraft-loving manbun twerp T-Ray… Right?”

He didn’t sound convinced. Nathan, yawning, wedged a pillow between Wade’s cheek and his chilly metal epidermis. The hand that arranged Wade until his head rested over his heart spoke for itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Drop me a comment, yo. Think of it as payment for awesome free fic.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **:David Bowie voice: IT'S BEEN SO LONG**

God knew how many times it’d happened. Peter found the body, but that was the first only from the Avengers’ perspective. How many more had been written off? Names logged in mortuary records, cause of death left blank for the sake of the families? How many empty powderbags had been tossed into landfill, blown from the windows people jumped out of, sunk to the muddy bottom off the Hudson harbor pier they’d drowned themselves besides? All stamped with the same sigil: the equilateral triangle with a circle at each point.

Peter brushed that stamp, which adorned both the sachet he’d gotten from the runaway dealer and that clutched between the fingers of the stiffening corpse. It was crimped into the plastic, a pale silver almost indistinguishable from the rest of the bag. Whoever supplied this stuff, they ran a pro operation – with their own stamping equipment, logo, and brandname. If he could only find out what that brandname was, he’d be a step closer to locating the culprits.

It was time to call for reinforcements. Peter tapped his Avengers communicator. “Wade Wilson,” he said.

***

Wade woke alone, with a buzzing communicator and a cold side. Must’ve been snuggling Priscilla’s left arm again. Yawning, he eased upright, light from the neon club sign opposite fuzzing through the window like hot pink St. Elmo’s fire.

It was still dark out. Having spent a significant portion of his life in special ops, Wade didn’t rely on chronometers to tell him the time; a glance at the mellow umber and blue decorating the New York skyline told him it was near four in the morning. A similarly brief peep at his comm informed him of the caller’s identity. _Spiderman_. Two unsavory doses of reality, one after the other. There was nothing Wade wanted to do more than roll over, burrow his head beneath his pillow, inhale the lingering traces of Nathan, and sleep. But he knew even that avenue would be tainted by the knowledge that Nathan had left.

Because left he had. There was no trace of his presence, no massive gun leant on the sagging sofa arm, no can of WD-40 on the counter. Nate must’ve felt a wobble in the timeline two hundred years from now, and blasted away to save humanity. Again. He hadn’t asked if Wade wanted to come, or even woken him up to say goodbye. Asshole. Running from an awkward conversation, as usual, the big wuss…

Kinda like the one Wade was avoiding, as he ignored the plaintive bleep of his Avengers disk.

He flopped back on the dusty, sex-stinking bed, a sprawling smelly starfish. "Well, this is great. He could’ve at least have left a note on the pillow. Talk about cavalier… I know, he _is_ rude! Remind me why we like him again?”

“Because,” came Nathan’s rumble from the grubby grotto Wade liked to call a kitchen, “I make you coffee.” His voice was warm, amused. Like a hot toffee apple, or a sizzling enchilada fresh from the pan. Wade could listen to it forever.

In contrast, the whinging communicator sounded like a crying baby. Someone else’s baby. Someone else’s baby that started grousing just when you get to the climactic part of your favorite film.

Wade hurled it passionately at the wall. Spidey could wait.

He bounded to his feet, deciding that the best course of action was to fling himself into Nathan’s arms. This goal was thwarted – one, because he didn’t want to get scalded, and two, because he was naked and maskless.

Nathan saw the whipcrack of shock cross his face. He questioningly lifted the scrap of red fabric off the top of the commode, where it’d been flung during last night’s excitement. Not with his hands, of course. That would defeat the point of sleeping with a telekinetic. The blue beam delivered it direct to Wade, who gratefully tugged it over his face. Sure, he’d been kissing Nate without concern last night, but long experience had taught him that to be wariest of the mornings after. It was around this time when most partners started nurturing regrets. One look at his mug in decent lighting (misshapen, raw, baby-soft with scars) and any sane fuckbuddy would run for the hills.

Luckily Nathan didn’t lay any claim to sanity. And he was so, so much more than just a friend-with-benefits.

For a start, he’d never demand Wade wear the mask around him. But equally, he’d never make him take it off either, in some misguided attempt to ‘prove’ to Wade that his little vanities were unnecessary. That was impressive; for a guy whose telepathy couldn’t pierce the eternal fluxation of Wade Wilson’s mentality, Cable made a damn passable effort at reading his mind.

Nathan stepped over the threshold from the kitchen, a steaming cup in each hand. Wade, confidence restored now that the fabric portcullis had lowered between them, bounced over to squint at treacle-dark liquid. “Wow. Talk about a builder’s brew. Where did you even find this?”

“In a cupboard.” Nathan blinked at his concoction, and it struck Wade – not for the first time; not for the last – how utterly adorable the man was when he was confused. Firm jawline softening. Silver, scar-slashed brows crumpling in a mixture of apology and dejection. “Did I do it wrong? Your microwave had a hole –“

“I put some peeps in it last Easter, along with a stick of dynamite. I’m honestly not sure which of them blew up.”

“So I heated it telekinetically. I have, uh, yet to sample the results…”

“Aw.” Wade slid into his personal space, loving the brush of that broad barrel chest on his. He rumpled Nathan’s hair, hard enough that a lesser man would’ve slopped the coffee. “Don’t you fret. Immortal constitution, remember? You can’t poison me.” He took a dubious sniff of the nearest cup. “Although you might be making a passable attempt. Nate buddy, I haven’t used this safehouse in donkeys’. Any coffee granules are ninety-nine percent rat dropping.”

Nathan snorted. Lifting the other mug, he took a tentative sip. He waited five seconds, until certain he wouldn’t spout froth and keel over, before handing the cup over.

Wade nursed a smile as he cradled the steaming chipped porcelain. Only Nathan would dare test potentially hazardous substances _before_ his unkillable friend. “No worries, I guess. I mean, most expensive coffee in the world’s cat-shit, right?”

Nathan almost choked on his mouthful. “You’re kidding me.” He ran a rapid scan of the infoweb. “You’re _not_ kidding me.”

“Would I ever?” Wade deadpanned.

The coffee tasted almost as terrible as it looks. Wade relished every mouthful, making it linger, swilling it around his mouth to coat every tastebud. The longer he took to drink it, the longer Nate would stay.

Nathan swallowed his dregs, pulling a face as the grinds scratched his oesophagus as if he were swallowing sandpaper. “Wade,” he said. There it was. That apologetic tone that Wade had come to dread. He determinedly blew on his mugful – the temperature of which had long since ebbed past lukewarm – and pretended not to hear.

“Y’know, this isn’t actually all that bad. A rich and fruity bouquet, with musky overtones of dirt, gristle, and eau de ratshit. One for the wine cellars, this.”

“Wade.”

“Y’know, I’m actually still thirsty. Can you make me another cup?”

“Wade, I have to go.”

Of course.

Nathan had tugged on his boxers, citing the fact that there were no blinds covering Wade’s stained windowpanes. Wade, more than willing to re-enact that one Life of Brian scene and show the entire city what he was packing (especially if Nate called him a Very Naughty Boy) had nonetheless been coaxed into a thong, which he claimed he put in his pouch belt by accident. (“Laundry day, Nate! Y’know how it is, when you live with a randy old lady roommate! Heck, I’ve probably got one of Al’s saggy old brassieres stuffed in here too…”) For now, they both perched on the bed’s edge, Nathan tilting the mattress in his direction with the weight of his half metal ass.

Mmm. Half metal ass. If Wade kept thinking those thoughts, he’d never let the guy go.

Which, unfortunately, he had to. Unforetold future lives depended on Nathan, and it’d be selfish of Wade to deny him the opportunity to go play Messiah. Cruel in fact – like keeping Wolverine from scratching up your furniture when he’d been at the catnip. Better Wade give Nathan up, for the days, weeks, months before he materialized back into his life. It was right thing to do. Especially given that Wade was a hero – or a hero in training. Which reminded him…

“Yeah?” he said, pointing at the sparking Avenger’s communicator embedded in his plasterboard. “Well, so do I. You’re not the only one with a dayjob now, Summers! We’re practically a two-income family.”

“I don’t have a salary, and you get all your money from merc-work.”

“That’s what you think. Maybe when you’re gone I walk the streets for money. I don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right, Roxanne.”

Nathan shot him a cheeky half-grin: the curl of a pale lip that never failed to set Wade’s heart fluttering Or, y’know, it would if he were the sort of guy who swooned at some big butch grandpa smirking in his general direction. Which he wasn’t. Absolutely not. “You’d look good in a red dress.”

Wade squirmed happily on the cushions. “I would, wouldn’t I? Hey, we could tango. Not that I know how to, but I’m sure we could figure it out. You be Tango, I be Cash. No wait. _I_ be Tango. I always figured I was more the Sly Stallone in our relationship. And anyway, you’ve got that sexy daddy vibe Kurt Russell always rocks. Speaking of sexy daddy and rocks, can you _believe_ he’s the dad of that beefed up Parks’n’rec dweeb? I mean, his actual dad, not the blue one. Way to spoil a major plot twist there, Gunn –“

His babble cut off as Nathan leant over, closing the inch between them. His lips tasted of bitter caffeine, even through the mask. Wade had never savored anything sweeter. “Next time,” Nathan murmured, a husky breath of promise. “Next time, I’ll take you dancing.”

He kissed Wade until he disintegrated, and Wade sat on the sofa with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth still stupidly pursed against the spit-moist fabric, wondering if Nathan would rematerialize if he only pretended hard enough.

 

* * *

 

 

Eventually, there was nothing left to do but answer the comm.

“Wade,” snapped Spidey the moment Wade pressed the receiver. He sounded hassled – no big surprise there. Kid looked like he subsisted on a diet of stress and caffeine. “What took you so long?”

Wade made an aborted shrug. Realizing he didn’t have a real excuse, he made one up. “There was this old lady who needed help carrying her shopping…”

“Now isn’t the time for Naruto references! C’mon Wade. What if this had been a crisis? People could’ve died.”

Oh yeah. The whole ‘hero’ thing necessitated that you save lives rather than take them. Wade winced. “Uh. It wasn’t, was it? A crisis-thing, I mean. My insurance refuses to cover superhero-related smash-ups nowadays. If all of downtown NY’s been obliterated again I don’t wanna _think_ about the amount of stashed semtex I’ve lost. I spent days crafting them into replicas of the British monarchy. _Days,_ Spidey. Heck, I was thinking of opening a waxwork museum – only, y’know, with more _boom_.“

He couldn’t see Spiderman shaking his head, but he could imagine it. “We’ll discuss the semtex later. For now Wade, I need you to be serious. Nobody’s dying – but somebody’s already dead. Possibly a _lot_ of somebodies. I need you to use your contacts to help me figure out who did it.”

Wade rolled onto his stomach, accompanied by the grind and groan of overtaxed springs. Even though Nate’s mahoosive tush had evacuated, the mattress still protested the torture the pair of them had put it through (rigorously, thoroughly, unapologetically; all throughout the night). He focused on Peter’s last sentence. Then split it down further, in the way only his Swiss-cheese brain could. He vacillated between two interpretations, knowing that if he decided on one it would entirely eclipse the other.

‘ _I need to use you_ ’. Or _‘I need you._ ’

One was significantly more attractive. And thus that became Wade’s reality.

He lived for snatched moments like those, when a proper hero, a _real_ hero like Spiderman or Cap or Wolverine, made him feel important and wanted. He was a tool for the mercenary world and he was a tool here as well – heck, he was even a tool for Cable half the time, although the big lug was getting better at _asking_ rather than _demanding._

 _Baby steps_ , murmured a box. Boxes couldn’t ‘sound’ like anything, but if they could, Wade thought this one would sound fond. _Boy’s a project._

He shook his head, as if thoughts of Nathan would be subject to centrifugal force. Now wasn’t the time to moon over Summers. Not if Peter’s message was urgent.

“How do I help?” he asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Not sure what I think of this chapter. Too short, too action-less, far too late. But I know some of y'all have been salivating for more. Let it never be said that Write_like_an_American doesn't deliver...**
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> **Except, y'know, on those other fifteen-odd WIPs I've abandoned. But this won't be one of them. Thanks to everyone who's kept me motivated through comments! Special shout-out to Sharpeslass! Your comments kicked my ass into gear.**
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> ****

**Author's Note:**

> **Oooh... Off to an interesting start, hmm? Tell me what you think.**
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> **Updates will be sporadic, as I'm currently in the middle of Finals. Editing will be laxer than usual for the same reason - please point out any errors you notice! However, comments and reviews do make excellent motivation!**
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> ****


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